Francis Collins wins 2020 Templeton Prize

I want to congratulate Francis Collins for having just won the 2020 Templeton Prize. In Templeton’s words,

Francis Collins is the Director of the National Institutes of Health and led the Human Genome Project to its successful completion in 2003. Throughout his career, he has advocated for the integration of faith and reason.

In his scientific leadership, public speaking, and popular writing, including his bestselling 2006 book, The Language of God, Collins has demonstrated how religious faith can motivate and inspire rigorous scientific research. He endeavors to encourage religious communities to embrace the latest discoveries of genetics and the biomedical sciences as insights to enrich and enlarge their faith.

When I reviewed his book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, I confess I found him “credulous.” His Statement for the Templeton Foundation strikes me as being no less credulous. Nevertheless, I find it laudable that he manages to keep his religion and his science separate, and more importantly encourages people to accept the findings of modern science and rejects all forms of creationism. Probably no one deserves a Templeton Prize more, and I was frankly somewhat surprised when I recognized that he had not won it long ago.